


This is After

by AgapantoBlu



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Bodily Fluids, But someone suggested I posted it here too, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I just wanted to write about Nicky using Andrew as a reminder he made it out of therapy, M/M, Mention of - Freeform, Nicky has a panic attack and wets himself, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Electroconvulsive Therapy, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Panic Attacks, Scars, So here it comes, and, conversion therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 17:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15394152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgapantoBlu/pseuds/AgapantoBlu
Summary: It’s a summer trip, when it happens. In hindsight, it’s probably not the first time, but in all the years they’ve known each others, it’s an absolute first for the Foxes to witness.Nicky has a panic attack about his time at the conversion camp, and the twins help out.





	This is After

 

 

It’s a summer trip, when it happens. In hindsight, it’s probably not the first time, but in all the years they’ve known each others, it’s an absolute first for the Foxes to witness.

Andrew is on the balcony of his room, chain-smoking so fast he hasn’t finished a single cigarette fully and chugging down whiskey like water. Neil is not with him, surprisingly; he’s inside, keeping himself busy in the kitchen of the cottage, maybe hanging out with Allison and Kevin, the only ones that have still to retire for the night.

Aaron is with him, though. He sits on the other chair and surveys the woods around them, the freshly fallen snow and the shadows of the skiing track they’re going to try out tomorrow. He’s doing a decent job at pretending his twin’s self-destructive mania isn’t freaking him out; or maybe he’s too busy examining his own reaction to the news to fully take in Andrew’s.

Nicky is adopting. He and Erik were notified the news of their approved request during the night, what with the time zone difference between the US and Germany, and woke up the whole cottage with yells and screams and cries. They’ve been insufferable happy and loud and surrounded by people.

Aaron opens his mouth. Closes it. Shakes his head to himself.

Andrew is unsurprised. He kills another half-cigarette and pulls out a new one. He’ll soon finish the packet, but there are other four in Neil’s bag and he’s not scared to finish another one just like this, chasing after the need to do something, burn, destroy, go down in flames of rage and mistrust and stupid, disgusting  _envy_.

He’s not envying Nicky.

He should be calling Bee.

Aaron sighs. And maybe, only maybe, this would have been the time he finally said what he wanted to, whatever it was, but they both jerk and flinch when a bloodied shriek fills the air.

Their heads snap back toward the inside, but Andrew’s faster on his feet.

_Four men laughing, the leftover impression of the bass from within the club, red all over the asphalt. The crushing_ fear _of grief and the groundbreaking realization of his own feeling. Rage, fury, wrath, get off him, you bloody pieces of shit._

He pushes Dan aside when she jumps out of her room, chasing after the sound, and her curse follows him, but it’s less poisonous than it could. She must have recognized the voice too.

Renee was the first to the door, and Andrew doesn’t question how she opened it, even knowing of Nicky’s habit of locking the door after that one time a drunk Kevin walked in on him and Erik.

Erik who still has his hands on Nicky and who Andrew is going to kill, right the fuck now.

“Andrew!” Neil, of fucking course. He barely restrains himself from pulling his knives out, but not from ripping his arm from the imaginary hold. Neil is not even touching him, but he doesn’t care.

Nicky is staring at the wall. He has wide eyes and a terrified expression that blanches his face even under his dark skin. Erik’s arms around his head and back are too constricting to allow him to recover his breathing, Andrew can tell, and he keeps panting with both hands wrapped on the forearm right around his throat.

Andrew almost lunges at them. It’s just Nicky’s hold on Erik that’s keeping him from physically throwing the asshole off the bed and massacre him right this moment.

He doesn’t know what happened, but Nicky is only in his underwear, terrified and crying, and Andrew’s gut demands he  _protects_.

“You have ten seconds to get out of this room.” He doesn’t trust Erik. He never had, he never will. If Nicky is a dumb idiot who gave him too much power over himself, then it’s up to Andrew to make sure the asshole doesn’t abuse it.

_Abuse. Abuse, abuse, ab-_

“I can’t leave him like this.”

“Though. Luck.”

Neil is hovering just beside Andrew, but the eyes drilling holes in his back are much more than two. Probably all the Foxes have come to the scream, drained to pain like moths to the flames. Quite a fitting metaphor, considering how many times they’d chosen to dance with things that ultimately tried to kill them. Drugs, criminals, childish hopes of happy endings.

“Get out of this room or I  _will_  kill you.” The ten seconds are over. Nicky is trembling so bad he looks in the middle of a seizure.

A mirror copy of Andrew, slightly softer or maybe just medically competent, rushes by his side to the bed and moves to kneel on the mattress.

The shadow from the corner of his eye is enough to rip another terrified scream from Nicky’s throat, and Erik holds his husband even tighter. Andrew fears a chocking hold, for a moment.

“It’s only Aaron, Nicky!” The attempt falls short. Whatever Nicky is seeing makes him try to trash out of the embrace, and Erik accompanies the movement rather than simply trying to smoother them against his own body. 

Aaron jumps backward. The distance only seems to calm Nicky just so much, as his voluntarily movements seem to cease altogether but the trembling persists, now even stronger. His leg kicks at the air, and Andrew can see the muscles in it clenching and unclenching. There’s two spasms in his body for every gasping breath he takes.

Erik mutters something in German, too low for anyone else to hear, but Nicky whimpers and Andrew is stepping forward. Time’s been up for a while and now the dear husband better have a good explanation or there will be another  _skiing accident_  in the Foxes’ records.

Much as with Aaron, Nicky starts convulsing when he picks that someone is approaching, but this time Erik looks up to Andrew and holds Nicky still.

“Love, love, look, it’s Andrew.”

The words sound weird in the stale air. It stinks of fear, sweat and piss. One stray look lets Andrew know Nicky wet himself in his frenzy. A glance to Aaron confirms that it’s not a good thing, that loosing control of his bowels like that can only mean their cousin’s brain is so far gone it’s a matter of time before the full panic attack blows into fainting or worse. Nicky is not cardiopath, thankfully, but they’ve been drinking all night and the alcohol in his veins can’t be a good factor.

“-dew?” It’s a wheeze. Andrew looks back to find Nicky is still staring at the wall, but his lips are trebling in the attempt of formulating the name. They fail on the “n” and the “r”, but the sound is similar enough to know he’s repeating his cousin’s name.

Something happens in Andrew’s chest at the mixture of surprise, confusion and vulnerability it carries. Like trying out a new word that turns out to be a magic spell.

Erik is nodding against Nicky’s hair. “Yes, love, Andrew. You know Andrew. He’s Aaron’s twin. Your cousin Aaron. Remember? They’re your family, now. You took them both when you turned twenty.”

Nicky blinks, for the first time perhaps, and two thick tears fall from the pools in his eyes. “Twenty.” His voice is hoarse and he looks uncomprehending in Erik’s arms.

“Yes, Nicholas. Twenty. You turned twenty several years ago.” Erik bites his lip before adding, “You’re turning thirty soon, love.”

“Thirty.” This time, there’s awe in Nicky’s voice. He savors the word like it doesn’t make sense to him, like  _thirty_  is such a distant concept in his mind, and not just an approaching date in the next three years. He whispers, “Andrew.”

Erik nods. “Yes, Andrew. You met him after you came back to the States. You met me in Germany. He and I, we both weren’t there when you were sixteen, Nicky.” Andrew tenses, brain connecting the dots of a nightmarish picture. “You met us after you got out of therapy, remember?”

Nicky has a full-body flinch at the word, but this time his face follows and he grimaces. He seems to be more aware of himself, even if that means that the tears run faster now and his eyes look haunted, rather than lost. “Out, right. After?”

“After,” Erik confirms. His shoulders relax slightly, his grip loosens just a bit. “You survived it, Nicholas. This is after.”

“After.” And Nicky closes his eyes. His whole body drops, the adrenaline leaving him all at once, exhausted and filthy. “After. Okay.”

There’s nothing okay about this, but nobody points it out.

Erik looks up to Andrew. The silent request is not the reason why he steps closer to the bed, let it be known. 

Nicky’s eyes snap open at the sound of steps, but when he raises his gaze he seems to be aware enough to recognize the face. Enough even to differentiate between the twins because he mutters the right name under his breath, still a bit testing but more grounded.

Andrew arches a brow, and Nicky sighs. His voice sounds like a radio with bad signal when he mutters, “Dad had people from the camp come and pick me up. He thought I’d try to resist so they came at night and dragged me out of bed.” He blinks. “Mom handed them a bag with some clothes and they threw me in a van, then we were off.”

Andrew doesn’t believe in revenge, but he believes in preventive measures to make sure Nicky never risks running into his parents again and they may include a murder or two. Aaron’s curse behind him tells him he might even have an accomplice, this time.

Erik pulls away. His hands fall in Nicky’s lap, around his own, and Nicky’s head lulls for a second before he finds the strength to lift it and meet his husband’s eyes. “I’ll make you something warm to drink. Can I leave you with your cousins? Think you’ll be okay?”

Nicky hums something, which is not an answer Andrew would accept -  _yes or not, don’t assume_ \- but Erik seems to not hold the same standards as he pecks Nicky’s forehead and stands up from the bed. He walks close enough to Andrew that he could get a knife to the gut, but seems unconcerned of the risk.

Which is why Andrew elbows his side,  _hard_. He’d told him to leave minutes ago now, the payback is just called for.

“Andrew!” His cousin’s nagging is, for once, reassuring.

As Andrew stomps closer to the bed, he realizes Aaron is approaching too, and Neil is herding the others out. They exchange a look just before the door is closed.

Nicky sighs, a much wetter sound than exasperation. “I feel disgusting,” he says, but Andrew doubts he means the piss.

Aaron doesn’t read between the lines, or does and elects himself to ignore the crap he finds there. “Take a shower,” he says. “Andrew can make sure you don’t fall and split your skull open. I’ll change the sheets.”

Which is the closest any of them is going to go to admitting that Aaron is a potential trigger, what with being a part of the family before the camp and his past with unsavory comments about his cousin’s sexual habits. Andrew checks with himself is he’s going to be okay this close to another man, helping him strip and into the shower, but finds no buzzing nerves threatening to overflow him.

Nicky is a safe person. Nicky has been a safe person for a long time, now.

He’s big enough that Andrew has to hold him up by standing under his arm, but it’s a short trip to the shower and similar enough to the hugs he used to get on the court, so he clenches his teeth through it. The process of undressing a grown up man who just pissed himself in fear is enough of a non-sexual situation that Andrew can work with impassiveness and method.

Nicky tries to help him, but his hands have yet to stop trembling so Andrew makes him keep the shower curtain open, and who cares if the floor gets soaked. He sits on the closed toilet, within arm’s reach if Nicky were to collapse, but nothing of the sort happens.

Nicky stands under the splash of water staring at the drain and lets the world happen to him.

It’s only after minutes that Nicky’s hands move toward his groin and for a moment Andrew questions his cousin’s sanity, but then he realizes Nicky is touching a few faint scars on his inner thighs and around his dick and balls. There’s the impression of a few on his arms, too, now that Andrew knows what to look for, but they disappear easily under the dark skin. Self-harm doesn’t look like quarters of a dollar, so Andrew assumes someone else put them there, and tonight gives him quite the lead on who.

They’re old; just not old enough, apparently.

Nicky lets his hand fall again, then turns the water off and looks up to meet Andrew’s eyes. “You’ll kill me if I ever try to hurt my son like that, won’t you?”

He’s not stating a fact and he’s not asking a question. He’s begging without saying “ _please_ ”.

“Of fucking course.”

Nicky looks bat-shit crazy, sighing in relief when hearing a death threat, but Andrew thinks he’s got a saner brain than most foster families he’d dealt with.

“Get your ass out of there. Even Aaron has to have finished changing a set of sheets, by now.”

Nicky doesn’t throw any comment about Aaron’s lack of proficiency in anything domestic, but he obediently steps out of the shower plate and drapes himself in the bathrobe he’s handed. It’s soft and Andrew guessed it was Erik’s because it’s a sober green, compared to the flaming pink of the other one. Nicky sniffs the collar and relaxes a bit more.

They step out of the bathroom in time to find Aaron curse bloody murder against a blanket and Nicky smiles a bit, which is the only reason Andrew deigns himself with helping his twin.

They force Nicky on the bed with matching glares, and when he’s buried in pillows and covered in the comforter, they sit on different edges of the mattress, Aaron a side and Andrew the end.

Nicky is hidden to his nose and doesn’t look at them, but it’s different from before, so they let him be. Aaron’s hand spasms once or twice before he forces himself to push it forward, to touch his cousin’s knee from above the blankets.

Erik walks in shortly after. He has four mugs of cocoa and a questioning look that Nicky answers by pulling the hood of the robe to his head and groaning loudly.

“Stop being dramatic,” Andrew scolds him.

“It’s embarrassing!”

“It’s a physiological reaction,” Aaron corrects. “Your brain redirected the energies to the systems needed to fight an outside threat and then short-circuited because he couldn’t find it with the perceptive systems. Your bowels were the least of its worries, at the moment.”

“Thank you, Dr. Minyard, I feel very much better now, knowing my brain’s fundamentally a stupid anxious mess.”

Aaron shrugs. “All brains are stupid. They’re just jelly filled with electric shocks.”

Andrew sees the last two words make Nicky’s shoulders stiff a bit again. He thinks back to the scars, and clenches his fists.

Erik hands Nicky is mug, which forces him to come a bit out of his den, much to his evident displeasure. “It’s cold.”

“Wear some clothes,” Aaron commands, at the same time as Erik kisses Nicky’s neck and mutters, in German, about warming him up.

Nicky blushes, which is a good look on him after the pale shade he’d been in before.

Andrew doubts any sex will take place this night, but he understands. Nicky needs to be reminded his relationship with Erik is very much real and physical in spite of everything he’s been put through to try and kill that part of him, those urges of his body. 

He wonders idly, for only a second, how long it took him to be okay enough to have sex with Erik. Maybe not as long as it took Andrew to try some stuff out with some kids in juvie, but definitely longer than anyone had always assumed.

Aaron doesn’t comment, not this time. Andrew thinks it a win, and Nicky must too, because when he looks over at his cousin it’s with a bit of gratitude in his eyes.

Andrew stands up before he can be the receiver of a similar expression. He doesn’t need his cousin’s thanks. 

He needs Nicky to be alive, he realizes. Alive for him and for Aaron, alive for a kid that won’t ever meet a Drake because Nicky won’t allow it.

He wished he’d just called Bee, rather than have the universe throw this crap at him to make him get over the fact that his cousin would be adopting someone else, after him and Aaron. Karma is a fucking bitch and Andrew will cut it down at the first chance he gets.

He leaves the room without a word, but stops when he hears hasty steps behind him. He turns and Aaron offers him his cup of cocoa. “Better than smoking or drinking,” he comments.

“Go tell Kevin,” but he takes his cup.

Erik puts chili powder in his mix because Nicky is Mexican in all the things where Andrew is undeniably white and he likes his chocolate _with_   _a kick_. Andrew is going to give a kick to the mix, alright, he’s gonna kick it to the curb and buy some real chocolate, sweet and not fucking assaulting his taste-buds.

Aaron is smirking. That asshole.

Andrew drinks the stuff down because he just likes to prove people wrong. And he’s somehow not surprised to find Neil in their room with a glass of milk, saying with a smile that it helps quell down the burning sensation of capsaicin.

“Will Nicky be okay?” he asks, as Andrew sets to change himself into a clean pair of sweats and half collapses in the bed.

“He’s an idiot,” he replies. “He’ll be better soon.”

Enough of an idiot to keep on loving men, to keep on clinging to his family, to keep on smiling through the storm. Nicky has always made of his idiocy his biggest tool of resiliency.

Neil hums and joins in on the bed. If Andrew pulls him close and allows himself to be the little spoon for the night, it’s just for them to know.

 


End file.
